Basketball Dominates Saturdays in La Verne

The Thunder: no particular order, Joseph, Andrew, Wyatt, Emma and Adam with coach Micahel Colasuonno.

In winter, Saturdays in La Verne are dominated by City League basketball, featuring players ranging from kindergartners to middle schools about to make their marks at the high school level. On the eve of the high school CIF basketball playoff, set to begin this week, we thought we take a closer look at the stars of the future.

We apologize in advance for some misspellings, taken from names scribbled into scorebooks or, worse, given to us by coaches on the run without their rosters. We promise, we’ll get everything right by the times the following teams and players make it to the NBA.

The Lakers; Ryan, J.P., Kaden, Cale, Luke, Jeff, Donovan and Blake.

Cale had a slam dunk!

The Heat: Michael, Morgan, Matthew, Parker, Cody, Chloe, Pablo, Paige, with Coach Alan Flores.

Go Chloe, who is quite a dribbler!

The Bulls: Gabriel, Olin, Elijah, Andreas, Anthony, Sean, Alice, Brandon and Lenny.

The Bulls were red hot!

The Warriors: Sam, Joey, Wesley, Brennon, Matthew, Jonah, Nolan, Josh, Max and Donovan.

Unstoppable!

The Heat: Andrew, Jordan, Kegan, Robert, Ricky, Nicholas, Luke, Layton and Nathan.

The Heat were sizzling all game long, but they fell to the Jazz 17-15 in overtime!

The Jazz: Sean, Beck, Brock, Christian, Cory, Shane, Anthony, Jake and Mike.

The Jazz led 5-1 at the end of the first quarter, 8-3 at the half, 12-7 at the end of three periods and finished the fourt quarter tied 15-15 after the Heat’s Jordan hit two free-throws. But the Jazz won it overtime, 17-15.

Warriors: Eric, Rene, Ethan, Tyler, Chase, Trevor, Michael, Bryce and Jonathan.

The Warriors in the “C” Division defeated the Spurs 25-21  in another close contest.

The Spurs: Thomas, Tyler, Freddie, Vincent, Jonathan, Jihwon, Kameron and Gabriel.

The Spurs were in the hunt the whole game, trailing the Warriors 8-6 after one period, 14-11 at the half,  and 18-17 at the end of the third before falling 25-21 to the Warriors.

The Magic: Ornales, Ello, Cambell, Henderson, Quishpi, La Fountain, Finn, Mercade, Willison and Kederian.

The Magic lived up to the name. Trailing the entire game, they won in the end, 22-20, over the Jazz.

The Jazz: Sean, Beck, Brock, Christian, Cory, Shane, Anthony, Jake and Mike. Feels like we've seen these guys before.

Jazz had been hitting the right notes all game long until the end.

The Clippers: Alex, Gabe, Dante, Braiden, Caleb, Brandon, Nick, Seth and Anthony.

The Clippers had a big fourth quarter to win 15-13 over the the 76ers.

The 76ers: Joshua, Andrew, Troy, Vincent, Scott, Sean, Jack, Josh, Joe and Isaac.

For the second and third quarters, the Sixers and Clippers were tied, before both teams started blistering the nets in the final fourth period. Clippers had the sails cut short, losing by a single basket, 15-13. They played great defense.

The "A" Lakers: Franco, Riebold, Hollor, Riebold, Smith, Mateen, Ello, White, Neff and Gabe.

The Lakers remained undefeated after defeating the Hornets.

The Hornet: Richie,, Noah, Paul, Michael, Austin, Joey, Adam, Mohammed and Justi.